The map collections that show us what our region and nation was like as the country developed.2

The Chronicling America pages with hundreds of early American newspapers digitized for our free use.3

The many blogs that help us make sense of the vast holdings of this American treasure.4

And now we have something more to thank the Library of Congress for: a page of items from the Library’s digital collections that are free for us to use and reuse without copyright concerns — items that the Library believes are in the public domain, have no known copyright, or have been cleared by the copyright owner for public use.

A picture of the youngest parader in the New York City suffragist parade of 1912? Yep, that’s there in the Women’s History Month set:

Even an image of some of our earliest footballers, in a photo taken between 1920 and 1930… yep, that’s there too, in the Football set:

And because these are all at the Library of Congress website, they’re not just free of copyright issues, they’re also easy for us to use because of its terms of use. Because the mission of the Library of Congress is “to further the progress of knowledge and creativity for the benefit of the American people,”6 its terms of use are basically three-fold: (1) don’t violate anybody’s copyright;7 (2) don’t invade the privacy of individuals whose information might be found in the Library materials;8 and (3) don’t mess with the site itself.9 That’s it. No muss, no fuss.

Now note that this page is just a start. There’s a lot more at the Library of Congress website that’s in the public domain that isn’t on this one page. As the page itself notes: “These sets are just a small sample of the Library’s digital collections that are free to use and reuse. The digital collections comprise millions of items including books, newspapers, manuscripts, prints and photos, maps, musical scores, films, sound recordings and more. Whenever possible, each collection has its own rights statement which should be consulted for guidance on use.”10

But the page will be expanded as time goes on, and it’s a great place to begin looking for copyright-free materials.

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